How to raise a reader

I started reading to my 3.5 year old when he was about six months old. One thing is always clear — he picks the book. Even when he was a baby. Mostly it was the colors or the pictures he was attracted to. Then he started recognizing symbols. He still doesn’t quite know which way to hold the book up or which side is the front. He does know how to find a book on snowplows, and he will “read” it to himself (backwards) while making up a story out loud of what it says.

The reason is that I want him to be excited about books and reading in all the ways I wasn’t.

A​s a child, I was a serial re-reader. I read Malitda 100+ times. I re-read the entirety one of my favorite Garfield comic books every night before bed. My mom read the entire Little House on the Prairie book series to me. Shel Silversteen poetry was another of my go-tos. I read the Chronicles of Narnia, series but liked those less than either Matilda or Garfield. This was about all I read until eight grade, when I discovered and devoured the first four books of Harry Potter.

I didn’t consider myself a reader. Let’s be clear, I very much WAS a reader. But, I had only read a handful of things, or, so I thought. My brother read thick books while waiting in line for rides at theme parks and I didn’t. Tolkien’s books were all too long. I wasn’t that ambitious.

So, I didn’t count, did I?

Wait a second.

I’ve made the exact same choice my parents did, and they are most definitely, unarguably, lifetime readers. We picked the books.

By the time I got to high school, all I read was stuff for English assignments and even then, I typically only skimmed them. Because English class assignments = not fun, apparently. To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men, and The House on Mango Street are all excellent books I tried reading again on my own terms as an adult.

I reached college and in-between assignments — that I skimmed because again, mythology and philosophy assignments = not fun, apparently — I read the Twilight saga as soon as the books were out. After reading Twilight, somewhere in the middle of Divergent, Hunger Games, and I am Number Four, I attended grad school and got a job as a Librarian.

One day I was filling out my then brand-new Goodreads account and I realized it — I have been a reader all along. I searched for all the other books I remembered reading- The Davinci Code, The Diary of An American Au Pair, A Time for Dancing (an OG tearjerker), The Man Time Forgot, The Likes of Me, and more. I was recommending books to other people. I read The Selection. And Wild. The Age of Miracles. And, This Song Will Save Your Life.

T​urns out, my parents were on to something. They had created a reader in me, after all. I found myself in all those stories. I still haven’t read Tolkien or Dune. I have read so much else. It took me awhile to learn that it is okay that my reading choices were different from my brother’s. I read what I wanted when I wanted at my own pace. It didn’t matter what it was. I read. That’s what makes me a reader. I have been a reader all along.

So, my child will pick the books.